‘Flora and Son’ exhibits how music can join us

My son and I’ve a convention the place if we each actually love a tv present, we’ll attempt to watch it collectively. Since we don’t reside in the identical home, that normally means that we’ll begin it on the similar time after which textual content our reactions to one another by the episode.

It’s considered one of my favourite methods to communicate with him as an grownup. Relationships between dad and mom and their kids get extra sophisticated the older youngsters get, and discovering methods to attach might be troublesome, and I’m at all times to see how that’s proven in movie.

So I used to be excited for John Carney’s newest movie, “Flora and Son,” at the moment streaming on Apple TV+.

Flora (Eve Hewson) is a single mom dwelling along with her troubled son Max (Oren Kinlan). They’ve a contentious relationship, and in an try and bridge the hole between them, Flora affords him a discarded guitar that she has mounted up.

When he rejects the present, she decides that she would be the one to study guitar. She finds Jeff (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) on-line and begins classes with him over Zoom. By their time collectively, she learns not nearly chords and strumming patterns, however about opening herself as much as the facility of music.

I cherished this film. I loved “Sing Road,” Carney’s final musical film set in Eire, and whereas this is similar, it’s distinct sufficient to not really feel like a retread of the identical movie.

I’ll say that this film is sort of sentimental, which can be off-putting for some, however which I discovered totally charming. Sure, it wraps up neatly, however not in a manner that feels pressured or manufactured. The ultimate scene made me smile and cry, however with out feeling fully manipulated.

The performances positively helped the story really feel grounded. Gordon-Levitt was most likely the least plausible of the characters, however his singing was beautiful, and he delivered every thing with sufficient coronary heart to make me consider it anyway.

However Hewson was the star of the film. I cherished the way in which that she captured the sentiments of somebody who grew to become a mother sooner than deliberate, and who’s now parenting a teen when she by no means actually acquired to expertise her teenage years.

I additionally thought this film did an attention-grabbing job of presenting digital relationships. We reside in a time the place folks have plenty of on-line relationships and the place Zoom is a part of many lives, and that was dealt with in a novel manner by this film. The usage of screens in movie is commonly not nice, and I appreciated the way in which that Carney dealt with it right here.

I’m at all times a sucker for a love story, and “Flora and Son” hits on that in some sudden, however lovely methods. Maybe I have to name my son and see if we will schedule a time to observe this one collectively.

ALISE CHAFFINS is a Morgantown author who loves films and sharing her opinions. She evaluations a film from a streaming service each Saturday and one newly in theaters each Sunday. Discover extra at MacGuffin or That means on Substack.